Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
According to the Salt Visit Report Westerly Middle School have both strengths and weaknesses. I will address both of those here.
Strengths
The Westerly Middle school is able to create a comfortable learning environment in which students are comfortable taking risks and chances. The school within a school form of the pod (team) areas is huge in helping to foster that. Additionally the teachers on effective teams spend a large amount of time collaborating daily in an effort to help their students achieve their best. With this practice no student is left behind. Furthermore teachers are passionate and open to change that will improve instruction. Numeracy is also taught very well across all content areas. As an example of this would be the riptides Team Economy which not only featured the typical student jobs and pay for the upcoming auction, but also included taxes, rentals (lockers and seats) and a banking and payroll process. A creative way of teaching numeracy in a real world scenario.
In need of Improvement
No school is perfect, and although WMS is very good at teaching numeracy, they could use improvement in teaching literacy skills. Although reading and writing are often used, they are not often used well. Many reading and writing assignments are surface level and superficial. Teachers need to give more direct guidance and feedback; in addition they all need to adopt the school wide writing rubric and procedure. They also need to incorporate more critical thinking into their lessons.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
According to the Salt Visit Report Westerly Middle School have both strengths and weaknesses. I will address both of those here.Strengths
The Westerly Middle school is able to create a comfortable learning environment in which students are comfortable taking risks and chances. The school within a school form of the pod (team) areas is huge in helping to foster that. Additionally the teachers on effective teams spend a large amount of time collaborating daily in an effort to help their students achieve their best. With this practice no student is left behind. Furthermore teachers are passionate and open to change that will improve instruction. Numeracy is also taught very well across all content areas. As an example of this would be the riptides Team Economy which not only featured the typical student jobs and pay for the upcoming auction, but also included taxes, rentals (lockers and seats) and a banking and payroll process. A creative way of teaching numeracy in a real world scenario.
In need of Improvement
No school is perfect, and although WMS is very good at teaching numeracy, they could use improvement in teaching literacy skills. Although reading and writing are often used, they are not often used well. Many reading and writing assignments are surface level and superficial. Teachers need to give more direct guidance and feedback; in addition they all need to adopt the school wide writing rubric and procedure. They also need to incorporate more critical thinking into their lessons.